Administrative and Operational Services Division

Auraria Library Impact Report Spring 2020 Cover

The Auraria Library is proud to launch a new initiative aimed at increasing transparency and highlighting the Library’s role in supporting our students’ academic journey on the Auraria Campus.

“We continually strive to be good stewards of our resources,” said Cinthya Ippoliti, director of the Auraria Library, “We have a strong sense of responsibility to let our users know how we support their goals and address the various tri-institutional priorities for the Auraria Campus.”

Centered around providing regular reports regarding the usage of our services, resources, and spaces, as well as understanding their impact on student learning and success, this first edition highlights how the Library met the arrival of COVID-19 by reinforcing the Library’s strong presence in the digital space and working diligently to ensure the health and well-being of the Auraria Campus community.

This report has two key themes:

Prioritizing the Health and Safety of Library Users

 

Campus Reopening Signage

Since the Auraria Library is open to all students, faculty, and staff of the three Auraria Campus institutions — along with the public at large — it was paramount for the Library to align with recommendations from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, along with institutional guidelines, to ensure the safety of our users.

With this priority in mind, the Library closed the building on March 18, 2020 and stopped the check-out process of physical materials.

“It was important for us to prepare for COVID-19 because we provide front-facing services to our community. We usually provide these services at the Ask Us Desk on the first floor of the Library, but COVID-19 made operating in this space unsafe,” said Bailey Wallace, interim department head for Access & Public Services.

To provide these services safely, the Library created Grab-to-Go. This new service mirrors curbside pickup by allowing campus affiliates to check out physical materials again while following proper social distancing and sanitation guidelines for returned materials.

With the reduced need of physical materials, the Library was able to purchase more than $10,000 worth of e-books version of the most popular print books— pushing 90 percent of the purchasing budget to electronic resources.

Reinforcing the Library’s Digital Presence

With more than 90 percent of library resources available online, closing the building and transitioning the remaining physical services into the digital realm proceeded with as little friction as possible.

“We’ve always supported users remotely, so for us it was not a huge change to shift everything online. It was more about communicating these changes to our users and making sure they knew how to access everything,” said Ippoliti.

Nonetheless, the loss of the library building as a physical space to gather, learn, and collaborate on the Auraria Campus created ripple effects in the Library’s impact on student success.

Computer Lab in the Library

Library instruction services designed to incorporate meaningful information literacy skills in the classroom moved to online asynchronous teaching modules. Research consultations helping students, faculty, and staff dig deep into library resources shifted to online-only consultations. Both services already included online components prior to COVID-19, minimizing issues in this transition as well.

“Our employees are incredibly dedicated and passionate about their work and will do just about anything to help. The numbers tell only part of the story,” said Ippoliti, “I am so proud of our staff, all of whom have continued to support students through this difficult time and have also explored new ways to improve our services.”

Get the Full Story:

Download Impact Report (PDF)

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